


Courtship

by inK_AddicTion



Series: Age of Rust [5]
Category: Guardians of Childhood & Related Fandoms, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M, M/M, Mentions Of Violent Sex, Nausea, Nudity, Recreational Drug Use, apollo and selena are from my fics gatekeeper and remembrance, body image issues, but no prior reading of them is required unless you want extra info, im only posting this because someone encouraged me to show them who apollo was
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 18:52:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6295783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inK_AddicTion/pseuds/inK_AddicTion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr prompt from elskedenattlys.tumblr.com for my versions of MiM's parents, "it could be worse." So here you have the story of their courtship and arranged marriage - after all, before there was MiM, there was the Tsar Apollo and his soon-to-be Tsarina Selena, who had to figure out life without love and a marriage neither of them particularly wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Courtship

**Author's Note:**

> Apollo and Selena are in my pre-existing fics Remembrance and Gatekeeper, but as I said, no prior reading of them is necessary. Throughout this, numerous references to magecraft are made - this is referring to a special brand of Lunanoff magic which has a tendency to bleach colour from it's wielders and periodically erode their control on the full moons. Both Selena and Apollo are afflicted with this.

* * *

The Constellations grew dark with Fearling threat. Shadows ran rife and Dream Pirates prowled the  shipping lanes, abducting more and more ships with each passing year. Open clashes between the Golden Army and the vicious Fearlings had erupted into messy, bloody warfare, and the light-blessed troops of the united Constellations had not been as successful as the people had anticipated. The new General of the Golden Army, the dashing Kozmotis Pitchiner, had won a few skilled victories against the Fearlings – but it wasn’t enough.

In times of darkness, the people looked to their shining Tsar for hope, but the Tsar was the last living Lunanoff, after a devastating fire had killed his father and put him on the throne, barely out of adolescence. The threat of extinction of his holy line seemed to wax with every ravaged city and stolen ship. What better to inspire the people than a royal wedding, and a planned new heir, the advisory council argued?

But for that, Tsar Apollo Lunanoff needed a wife. Which, coincidentally, happened to be the one thing Apollo was quite adamant on _never_ getting.

Contracts had been found, alliances drawn up, and the council had picked out a suitable enough girl, young, meek, not pretty enough to be ungrateful at having been slighted by the quickness of the proposed wedding. She was a daughter of the Virgo Constellation, well renowned for their beautiful dancers, and fortunately, they were already contracted to provide a wife for the Tsar’s late father, and very willing to extend it to include his heir, upon the Tsar Asterion’s death.

Now, all that remained was to blackmail Apollo into agreeing, and the council had picked out the best man for the job; councilman Admetus, a senior member and prior advisor to Tsar Asterion. And also, once the young prince Apollo’s tutor in such important things as mathematics and politics, and the closest thing to a friend the boy had been allowed.

The councilman laid his hand upon the door for a moment, listening for any obvious sounds of passion within. It was the middle of the day, and the sun streaked through the stained panes of the windows lining the halls to Apollo’s private rooms, but Apollo had never been in the habit of restricting any of his preferred pastimes since his father’s death.

Admetus sighed. Apollo was a Lunanoff down to the core, leading with his heart and not his head, full of rash recklessness and anger at the world, and still only a boy even if he counted more years than many realised. He refused to let himself be checked by any restraint, and was a thorough disciple of indulgence and vice.

He knocked twice, politely, and after a minute of no answer, turned the knob and entered, announcing his presence as he did so.

“My Tsar?” he called, his voice carrying and his long robes whispering around his ankles. They were pale gold, embroidered with Lunanoff white, and almost swaddling on his thin frame, upon which his bony head perched. He had small, sharp eyes and a beaky nose, with a pair of spectacles balanced on them.

The wide, spacious sitting room was empty; a thick book scrawled over with arcane symbols tossed carelessly on one of the cream couches before the great windows, a pot of ink and a roc-feather quill Admetus had watched Apollo enchant himself left on the low table before it, blotting paper furled over the quill-tip. The sun bathed the priceless book liberally – at least Apollo had had the sense to close it, so that its secrets could not be exposed to the spying air.

Admetus pursed his lips at the sight, recognising it for one of Apollo’s personal notebooks on the study of magecraft, and shook his head. The young Tsar had never been outwardly studious if he could at all help it.

Having checked the study, Admetus proceeded warily towards the bedroom, mentally preparing himself for any manner of disturbing sights. Perhaps the Tsar was asleep. However, as he neared it, Admetus noticed a pungent smoke in the air, and that the door was ajar, coils of thick smoke drifting slowly out of the crack and towards the opened windows.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and idly wished he had argued that the council-member Lady Archaline Pitchiner go in his place. Apollo had got his hands on the ritual incense again – probably that priestess brat Alysea – which meant he would likely be more biddable to the council’s commands, but it also had a tendency to put him in a… difficult mood to deal with. It could’ve been worse, he thought.

Admetus rapped sharply on the door, and when no reply came, he pushed the door open, holding the sleeve of his robe over his face as clouds of scented smoke billowed around him.

Apollo was there, but he was not alone.

The two youths, both male, both nude, lay displayed on the silken white bedsheets like a sacrificial offering to the greediest of gods. The smoke hazed the air, blurred the outlines of their forms until it seemed as if they melted into each other, tanned bronze gold and the starkest white. It was a picture bizarrely non-sexual, signifying only a close current of understanding intensified by the blooms of scented ritual smoke from an incense burner on the fireplace mantel, as well as that from the expensive pipe.

Their heads were inclined closely, as if they’d just broken from a lazy kiss, and the other youth held a familiar, expensive pipe in his strong fingers, one that he raised to Apollo’s lips without breaking their eye-contact.

Apollo sucked the tip into his mouth, dark eyes lidding as he breathed out the smoke in a lazy plume. His pupils were huge and dilated, his expression tender with a peace Admetus had never seen achieve outside of chemicals.

Apollo looked so spectral as to be anaemic, like cool, smooth marble. His slender body was unmarked by any flush, though his veins and the soft pulse of his holy blood was visible through his near-translucent skin, in the arched column of his royal neck. His full, soft lips were slightly parted, the nearly colourless pale pink of his mouth almost visible. The only colour on him was in his fine hair, brushing over the pillow and streaked through with black that shimmered with gloss in the dimly lit room. There was no doubt that Apollo had inherited the best of his line’s genes, indeed, it was the favoured remark of many a courtier how much the young Tsar resembled his father, both cold and perfect, like winter roses, and both hiding sharp thorns.

By the military coat abandoned over the bedpost, Apollo’s companion was a recruit, and he certainly had the look of one. He had the strong, defined tone of an athletic lad, tanned all over and deep golden beside his pale Tsar, a few scars marring his body with thin lines of battles fought and won, the calluses on the hand that cupped his Tsar’s soft, milk-white cheek those of a swordsman. Too much attention from Apollo’s pale fingers had ruffled his jet hair back in a style familiar to Admetus, though the recruit’s lips were slightly too full, and his eyes were sky-blue, not that sharp, off-putting shade of grey, his nose the wrong shape. Nonetheless, his resemblance to General Pitchiner was striking, and there was no doubt in Admetus’ mind that Apollo had chosen the recruit for exactly that reason.

A pang of pity struck the councilman’s heart despite his disapproval.

Admetus cleared his throat, and when that elicited no reaction, strode to the window and thrust it open. He breathed in the fresher air with some relief, easing the spinning of his own mind. Apollo might have been like a son to Admetus’ heart, but that smoke did strange things to the mind, and stranger things yet to the body. He would have to have been blind to ignore the picture the two of them made, like artists’ models.

“My Tsar,” he said, loudly, “Forgive me if I do not kneel. This smoke is no benefactor to balance.” He lingered by the window, watching as Apollo’s head slowly turned to look at him, with the remote, detached glaze of one who was both perfectly aware and perfectly uncaring.

“Councilman,” he murmured. “How pleasant to see you.”

Admetus inclined his head stiffly and pushed his glasses up his nose. “My Tsar flatters me,” he said with an undertone of sarcasm, and then, “Have you thought further on the matter we raised at the last meeting?”

A faint furrow of concentration came over Apollo’s face, and he took another drag of the pipe, exhaling the stream of smoke with the ease of practice. His hazy silver eyes stared as it danced towards the vaulted ceiling. “The proposal…”

“Yes, my Tsar. The council have voted; the wedding is set to be held in three weeks.” His voice was stern, calling on any authority that may have lingered from Apollo’s childhood.

As expected, Apollo’s nose wrinkled slightly at the tone of command, and he elected to ignore Admetus completely in favour of his handsome distraction. He kissed the recruit’s neck, wisps of smoke scrawling lines of his lips into the recruit’s skin, his hand curving possessively around the muscled cup of the youth’s shoulder, squeezing the toned definition of the musculature with a distant affection.

“My Tsar, please stop being childish,” said Admetus sharply.

Apollo must have breathed a sigh into the youth’s neck, for the golden skin rippled with goosebumps. “Your words are sweet, councilman,” he said eventually in a measured tone, “But as ever, there are too many of them.”

Admetus’ brow arched and he sniffed. “You _must_ marry,” he said frustratedly, “The people look to you as  their Tsar for guidance, and a heir will ensure the future of your line and allow your people a chance to rejoice. This contract has been arranged for years by your lord father – may the light keep him – and I am afraid you have very little choice. You are the last living Lunanoff, and it is _your_ duty to ensure your holy line continues.”

Resting his forehead against the recruit’s cheek, Apollo stared at Admetus with speculative dark eyes. “Would it be so bad if we ended here, with me?” he asked, the silver ring of his iris around his dilated pupil seeming to catch the light and shimmer with an esoteric gleam of its own.

Admetus started, eyes darting to the recruit, an unwitting witness to these highly treasonous words. “Leave us!” he ordered at once, and the recruit gazed at him with a foggy sort of comprehension.

The recruit moved with a strange, smoke-induced sort of grace to the door, bending to pick up his coat and shrugging it numbly over his shoulders as he did so. With his exit, some sort of clarity seemed to sharpen the room, or perhaps it was just that the majority of the smoke had blown away, through the window.

Sitting up, Apollo watched his distraction leave with eyes that suddenly looked so painfully lonely that Admetus felt the need to clear his throat. “His name is Methran,” said Apollo, “He’s a recruit here.” The suggestion was clear in his words, and if not them, then the small smirk that pulled his lips, his sigh as he lay back against the sumptuous pillows, dark eyes considering.

Admetus adjusted his glasses uncomfortably. “I have no need of his name,” he snapped, and Apollo just chuckled, one finger dragging slow, sensuous circles across his bare stomach.

“He takes only a little money, if you insist on giving it,” said Apollo, like a secret, “He says he enjoys keeping the lonely company. And I know… you do get _so_ lonely, councilman.”

“Put some _clothes_ on, Apollo,” was Admetus’ only response.

Apollo rose fluidly, for a moment stepped close to Admetus, adjusting the line of his councilman’s robes, biting his tantalising smirk. “Do I make you uncomfortable, Admetus?”

He lost interest almost immediately, turning away and sauntering to his wardrobe. He was patently unashamed in his nudity; he always had been, even as a child. Some things never changed. His words floated out over his shoulder as he disappeared inside. “I make Pitchiner uncomfortable.”

“Is that so, my Tsar,” said Admetus wearily. _Pitchiner. Again._ He probably knew more about that General from Apollo than he had stitches in his robes.

“Mm,” Apollo hummed from inside the closet. “He’s not sure whether to be attracted to me or alarmed by me. I set all his little danger instincts off and he doesn’t quite know why.” He sounded a little sad, a little pleased. “Odd that I do, but not his _snake_ of a wife. Don’t get me wrong, I have all the respect in the world for her but -” He whistled. “He’s _brave.”_

There was a long pause, and then the rustling of clothes stopped, and Apollo said with something of forced nonchalance, “He introduced his daughter to me today.”

Admetus inhaled and massaged his temples. So _that_ was what this was about.

“Mark my words,” Apollo said, “that child will grow into a storm of a woman. He dotes on her, already, though. It hasn’t been so long, but that little girl has him wrapped around her finger.” His voice still sounded strange, off, and he laughed a little, a mirthless sort of sound. “He’s a good parent. I’d be a _terrible_ father.”

Admetus winced. _Suns and comets,_ what had Pitchiner done to upset Apollo so badly this time? On his best days, Apollo couldn’t seem to work out whether to admire or be jealous of his oblivious General, and evidently whatever had happened today had aggravated that in the extreme.

“Perhaps you talk of him too much, my Tsar,” said Admetus diplomatically.

“He’s my friend,” came the oddly defensive reply. “People talk about their friends.” Another pause. “Don’t they?”

Pushing his glasses back up his nose, Admetus said dryly, “They certainly don’t hire whores who have a close likeness of them.”

Apollo reappeared, dressed in a fine shirt with cream leggings, black boots. He shrugged, moving towards his cosmetics table to apply the layer of make-up to his face that made him seem less concerning to the public. “So what, I’m curious,” said Apollo carelessly. “He’s the only one who refuses _me.”_ He sounded both proud and vaguely irritated.

“It sounds like,” said Admetus pointedly, “you need a companion, my Tsar. Like a _wife?”_

Once again, Apollo ignored any mention of wives, apart from giving Admetus a dry look in the mirror. Apollo walked back to the bed, where the handsome pipe had been discarded upon Methran’s leaving, and picked it up. He rolled it contemplatively between his palms.

“My father would have killed me if he saw me with this,” said Apollo reflectively. “His own pipe.” With a quick, sudden jerk, he closed his fist over it, smoke seeping through the gaps in his fingers. When he opened his hand again, only ashes drifted down to the bed’s pure sheets. “May he rot forever in starfire.”

“It could be worse, my Tsar,” entreated Admetus. “The match need only be for as it long as it takes for her to give you an heir.” He paused, a sour taste filling his mouth at his next words. “She would certainly not be the first to meet an _accident_ in these Towers.”

Apollo sat down heavily amid the ashes of his father’s old pipe, raking his hands through his hair. “I would be no sort of husband,” he said bitterly. “I’m nothing like – how could I ever swear marriage oaths without _lying,_ and if I can’t even do that, how am I supposed to be a father?”

“You need only make her conceive,” Admetus reminded him. “There are staff for the rest. You may be as involved as little or as much as you please.”

Slowly, Apollo lifted his head to look at him with haunted silver eyes, bored into a pale face that even with the most careful applications of makeup still looked sleepless and wrought with stress. “What sort of childhood is that?” he demanded. “I don’t want to be-” he broke off with a snarl, clenching his fists and glaring down at the ashes of his father’s most expensive pipe on the bed.

Admetus adjusted the line of his robes, and said in a softer tone, “The fact that you are worried about that shows exactly that you will not be. It could be far worse for her, and we both know it – you are rich, famous, young, and the servants say that you are a considerate lover.” This was delivered dryly, and even managed a slight twitch of a smile from Apollo.

There was a long silence. Apollo dragged his hands through his hair again, and finally said, “So who is she.” It was barely a question, flat and hard, but Admetus felt a hint of relief. Progress.

“A Virgo girl,” he said, and drew from his robes a small portrait. He handed it to Apollo, who glanced at it once, and then looked away, something tight knotting in his expression. “Her name is Selena, daughter of the Lady Amalthea, they’re the current ruling family in Virgo. They say she’s the quiet, gentle kind. Plays the pianoforte, dances, all of that sort.”

“Poor girl,” Apollo muttered. “I’d wager she has no choice in this either.” He pulled the portrait across his knees and studied it, still with a blank, bleak look on his face. “Suns know if I was being forced to marry a mess like me, I’d just leave with the next passing star.”

“You won’t know until you meet her,” said Admetus carefully, and Apollo’s shoulders sagged in defeat.

“Schedule an appointment,” he said flatly, and rose, eyes avoiding Admetus as he strode out. “I’ll be in the lower rooms if you need me.”

Admetus refused to admit that his body all but buckled with relief. _That could have gone a lot worse,_ he thought with a hint of dry optimism. _We only lost the pipe, at least._

* * *

Selena sat bolt-upright on her chair, hands clasped tightly in her lap and back as straight as a ruler. Her neck was rigid, barely moving as the maid, Yarra, brushed her long hair free of tangles. The stare that met her in the mirror was stormy and conflicted, a girl dragged in over her head, frightened child crying in the cellar. Set in the cadaverous pallor of her skin, her blue-grey eyes looked muddy, uglier than ever.

Pale, so pale, always so _colourless._ One of Selena’s earliest memories was being slapped by her mother, trying to raise some colour to her cheeks, being pinched and patted and prodded by every passing family member – _the girl must be ill_. A thousand physicians, priests, and wise-women later, and none could find anything wrong with her at all. But Selena could feel it – knew it was there, the _poison_ under her skin. It rattled and breathed and leached the life from her body until she was whiter than snow, a ghost doll dressed in pretty pink pastels.

 _It_ wanted to come out, and it never cared if it destroyed her in the process.

“You’re so tense, ‘Lene,” said Yarra, finally, and Selena didn’t dare admit that some of the nervousness inside her unwound at the friendly nickname. Yarra looked back at Selena in the mirror as she worked the brush through her hair, until it lay shining and sleek like moonlight down her back. A small, teasing smile curled the maid’s lips. Warm, rosy, beautiful, everything Selena _wasn’t._

Instinctively, Selena’s eyes darted around her boudoir, checking for any observers to the moment of forbidden friendship between the two girls, despite knowing they were alone, and Selena had never been the sort to attract any visitors. It was deserted but for the two of them and the hulking armoires filled with Selena’s primly pressed dresses.

They’d grown up together, learned to dance together, learned to sing, and learned to play whenever Selena’s mother wasn’t looking, because it wasn’t _proper_ for a young lady like Selena to be friends with the daughter of some common lass. Yarra had been her companion since Yarra’s mother had been brought in as a wet nurse for Selena; the formidably busy Lady Amalthea had quickly tired of having a baby attached to her. They were as close as sisters, but now, Selena was going to have to leave her behind.

She was going to have to leave _everything_ behind, everyone that she knew, the familiar halls of her childhood, the dancing mats and the distant presence of her mother, siblings circling in and out every now and then and awkward introductions. It may not have been the warmest of places, but it was _hers,_ and she would have to give it all up to marry a man she had never met.

And not just any man, _a Tsar,_ royal and blessed by the holy Light, beloved by all and worshipped as a young god.

Selena realised she was shaking, and black edged the corners of her vision. With a gasp, she bent over the table, letting the shudders overwhelm her. Her heart was thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings in her throat and her breath was tight and constricted. Nausea lurched in her stomach, and she clapped her hand over her mouth.

“Oh, ‘Lene,” said Yarra, sympathetically rubbing her shoulders. “You don’t need to get so worried about it. He’s already agreed to meet you, hasn’t he? That’s half the battle won.” A hint of teasing entered her voice. “From the moment he sees you, he’s gonna fall in love with you, because I’ve spent all morning slaving away to make you look all beautiful, and then all you’re gonna have to do is prise him off you so you can get back here and tell me all about how it went.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Selena gasped. “You’re good with – with people. With _men._ What do I know about _other people?”_

It was true – Yarra had always been the one to attract admiring eyes, male or female, while Selena tagged along awkwardly in her shadow. People were always vaguely disappointed to learn that Selena was supposedly the young lady, and Selena was usually so nervous when some kind soul took pity on her that she ended up rambling or replying in short, one-word answers. She was too ugly, too awkward, never as good as the others, always somehow average in everything she did.

Yarra snorted. “You worry too much,” she said, stroking Selena’s hair comfortingly. “Men are easy. Laugh at his jokes even if they’re terrible, and pretend you need him like air. Bam! Instant adoration.”

“If – if I mess this up,” she whispered. “I – I can’t – Mother would – she would _kill_ me – and – even if I _do_ succeed, there’s the wedding – and a-after, he’ll want me to – he’ll want me to-” She hunched further over, shielding her mouth again. A sick clenching roiled low in her belly, and instinctively she squeezed her thighs together. Just the thought of it made her want to cry and scrub her skin in the shower until she bled.

She’d heard stories, some from Yarra, some from the other girls who lived in Spica, the capital city of the Virgo Constellation. The cruellest girls had taken Selena aside when news of her engagement had become known, and told her about how much it would hurt, how she’d not ever look the same and that everyone could always _tell_ when a woman had been made from a girl, because she walked differently, and sometimes if girls were short and small like Selena was, the man would tear her right open inside and every time she laid with him everyone would know the next day, because she’d bleed like it was her moon-time. Upon hearing of these stories, her mother had taken her aside and briskly explained that the girls were full of nonsense – if a woman could have a _baby,_ she could take a man – and that anyway, how Selena felt during it didn’t matter, so long as she pretended she was having a good time it would be over soon enough.

But Selena looked at herself in the mirror and felt ugliness stain her skin, and the urge to vomit only became stronger. Once he’d got her dress off, the pretty dress they’d made specifically for her to _try_ and make her look like that, at sixteen, silent, awkward, stilted and cold, she was womanly and curved, and not just soft in the wrong places, would he even _want_ her? Would he send her away? Everyone said the Tsar had entertained the most beautiful ladies and handsomest men in all the known galaxies, was able to make anyone see the Light itself with just one touch, and Selena was _ugly,_ too fat and short and nothing at all like willowy, graceful Yarra.

Shame flushed heavy and thick on her cheeks, even then appearing only as the faintest, blotchy dusk of pink. The _embarrassment_ of being sent away, the only outcome she could foresee, sank heavy, poisoned claws into her belly.

“Whoah, whoah, hey,” said Yarra, “You’re getting a little ahead of yourself. Relax. I’d say that part’s the easiest part. You just have to lie back and let him do his thing, and from what I’ve heard, you’ll be in _very_ good hands.”

Selena uttered a low moan of terror. “Look at me!” she raised her head and pulled at her cheeks, too soft, too round, everything about her was all _wrong._ “How could I – how could I _p-please_ a _T-Tsar?_ B-be his wife? Oh s-suns, a _mother,_ he’s going to want me to-”

She felt violently sick, saw her cheeks (too white, too pale, she never flushed) cast with a greenish pallor. Dizziness hazed her vision again, and she clutched desperately to the wood, trying to anchor herself. Darkness bled over her eyes.

“Hey, come on 'Lene, don’t pass out on me,” said Yarra, abandoning the hair brush and kneeling in front of Selena instead. She gently tugged one rigid, pallid hand and smoothed it out of its clawed grip on the desk. “Focus on my voice, take some deep breaths, like we practised, yeah?” She kept talking, studying Selena’s terrified white face, sweat beading on her forehead. “He’s lucky to have you, 'Lene, luckier than he’s ever going to know. And if he says otherwise… I’ll break his damn nose.” Yarra injected a bit of lightness in her tone. “Hey, I’ll probably be executed painfully immediately afterwards, but at least I’d die knowing I’m right.”

Selena’s breathing steadied, and her hand loosened its death grip on Yarra. The maid offered her a smile, and weakly, Selena tried to return it. Almost instantly, it melted off her face.

“There we go,” said Yarra, comfortingly, “See, I know you 'Lene, and once you get past the awkward, 'don’t glance at me peasant or I’ll freeze you’ thing you pull, you’re the kindest and sweetest girl I’ve ever known. And plus – you’ve been training literally your whole life for this, you couldn’t mess it up even if you tried!”

“But he’s supposed to be _handsome,”_ said Selena despairingly, “We’ll look ridiculous!”

“Bah,” snorted Yarra, “They’d call any Lunanoff gorgeous even if they were as pretty as a Pooka. And I know you won’t believe me, but you’re not bad looking at all, 'Lene. Trust me on this one, you’re going to be absolutely fine. In a few months, you’ll be laughing at yourself for ever worrying.” She winked slyly. “And hey, if it all goes well, you might end up in bed with the oh-so glorious General Pitchiner as well. The rumours say they’re pretty _close.”_

Selena gagged in horrified fright, and Yarra winced, realising that was probably the _worst_ thing to say to Selena.

It sounded like a nightmare; two men to disappoint at once, and both the most important men of the Constellations? The General was _terrifying,_ and Selena had never understood why Yarra liked to spend so much time sighing over posters of him – to Selena he just looked hard, cold, and ruthless. Like the sort of man that wouldn’t hesitate to run her through.

“In a few months, I’ll probably still be being sick in the bathroom,” she muttered, and Yarra laughed.

“That’s my 'Lene,” she said, proudly, but Yarra’s eyes still looked soft and worried, and Selena knew that Yarra wished she could go with her, to protect her, so that Selena didn’t have to face it alone.

“It… It could be worse,” said Selena, trying for a smile. She felt horribly selfish that she wasn’t comforting her friend, Yarra was hurting too, but her stomach was still quivering from nausea and her future looked bleak with despair.

She wasn’t sure how much worse it could get. She was going to be abandoned in a new place with people she didn’t know, married to a man she’d never even met, who’d probably slept with more women than Selena counted days in her life, and, on top of that, Tsarina of all the Constellations.

“Yarra,” said Selena contemplatively, “You may want to move, because I’m going to throw up now.”

* * *

Apollo was late.

Of course he was, thought Admetus, with some irritation, he was probably doing it just to prove a point. He’d been lumped with the task of placating the sharp Lady Amalthea, who had explained to him at great length how rude a delay was, and how badly it would interfere with her scheduled events for the day. She was a short sort of woman, rather old, with small, beady eyes and a permanent look of affronted displeasure. Admetus had heard her described more than a few times as the Hag, and never had an appellation seemed more appropriate.

The future bride stood a little behind her mother, very quiet and meek, but looking steadily more embarrassed as her mother continued to harangue the councilman. Admetus was just on the point of interrupting her, with some asperity, in order to remind the distinguished Lady exactly _who_ she was talking about. Her own Tsar, blessed avatar of the Light, not some errant potboy!

Thankfully, he was saved on doing so by the appearance of Apollo, at last. “My dearest Lady!” he cried, from the top of the grand staircase that led down to the foyer, “Forgive my tardiness, I had a sudden meeting of grave importance.”

All of them went to their knees at his entrance, and he waved them idly up again, playing the charming ruler down to every last stitch in his apparel.

Admetus shot the young Tsar a glower out of the corner of his eye, which Apollo promptly ignored. How _dare_ he? Admetus had purposefully cleared Apollo’s schedule for the entire day! _It could be worse, at least he’s here now._

Apollo swept down the stairs and caught the Lady Amalthea’s hand, kissing one of her golden rings. “My Lady, my eyes deceive me, for you have done the impossible and only grown more enchanting since the last time I saw you.” His silver eyes flicked up to hold hers, dark and compelling, and a small spark of magic jumped from his soft lips to the metal of her ring, charging through her body like a small zap of lightning.

Mollified by his attentions, the Lady blushed a little, her annoyed countenance suffering a small, slightly girlish smile.

Admetus felt his stomach roll in horror. The look was unnatural on the Lady Amalthea’s face.

“My Tsar is too kind,” she simpered, “And surely so very busy in running the Constellations, it is quite understandable.”

Privately, Admetus fumed. Of _course_ the Lady decided everything was fine once the pretty boy flattered her. Admetus had been arguing with her for hours, then _Apollo_ swept in, and everything was rosy!

Apollo straightened, releasing her hand. He looked with some curiosity at the shy thing half-hiding behind her mother.

“And surely, you are the Lady Selena,” he said charmingly, “Truly, if I had had but an inkling of your true beauty, only the Fearlings overruning our Celestial City could have barred me from seeking you out at once. May I beg forgiveness, my lady?”

It was all lies, of course, and Apollo couldn’t help but be a little sceptical. This? A girl – yes, a child still – with a fear-bleached face, painfully shy, and hair so palely blond it already looked half-grey, oddly washed out in appearance, as if someone had simply drained the colour from her. She had soft, round sort of features on a frame that hadn’t quite grown out of childish fat, tall enough that it made her look gangly, but still heads shorter than he was. She twitched and fidgeted, but her posture was painfully straight and she held her shoulders stiffly, uncomfortably. The white she wore did not suit her well, made her look even more washed out, but he supposed she was a pretty enough girl – but just that, a _girl._ Apollo preferred _women_.

 _It could be worse,_ he reminded himself firmly, _there’s always poison._

“Of course, my Tsar,” said Selena, very quietly, curtseying quickly.

Shyly, she raised her eyes to look at his face. She had always pictured the Tsar to be very beautiful, but to Selena he just looked bloodless, tired, and melancholy. He had deep, grave grey eyes and cheeks brushed with powder. Glitter dusted his eyelids, and he had blackened his eyebrows with yet more. His hair was parted neatly and combed back, the tips touching his snow white collar. It was streaked through with black. His patrician nose was straight and long, his lips full and soft, and the shape of his face noble and aristocratic. Though young, there was an unreadableness in his clear, powerful gaze, and when his pale pink lip creased just faintly in disappointment, she felt it crash down upon her shoulders like the skies had fallen around her ears.

“My lady looks pale,” he commented softly, and he had mesmerising, chilly eyes, the sort that drew the unwary in and then stabbed them in the back. “Perhaps a walk in the gardens would refresh you?”

Completely ignoring the Lady Amalthea’s half-formed protest, he turned and offered her his arm. Selena was aware that she was shaking again as she took it, leaning on him rather more than she would have liked as anxious terror made her steps wobbly.

Admetus smoothly assumed control, leading the Lady Amalthea away as two guards fell into place behind Apollo and Selena, both protection and chaperone.

He inquired politely about her lodgings and her journey, doing his best to break the awkward silence that quickly settled. She responded to his questions in a very soft, low voice, evidently trained into her, but nonetheless a pleasure to listen to and utterly without offence. Her steps were small and her hand on his arm remained demure, her blue-grey eyes lowered, her skirts brushing against his leg. They made an attractive couple, he had to admit, passing the long hall mirrors, they looked as similar to one another as to be brother and sister, not cousins entering a marriage.

They emerged into the gardens, and finally, she looked up from her polite study of the floor, still young enough that her eyes perceptibly widened in wonder.

The gardens were a masterpiece of cultured lawns and a collection of the rarest plants and flowers. It was structured in a great dome, the top of which was hung with soft gold lights that made it seem as if the stars shone down upon them. Currently, the dome was swirling with soft, mysterious colours, dawn pinks and evening blues, night blacks and soft twilight colours. It flowed like a great river, varying with the time of the day and shading the green-tinted light of the sky.

Paths wound in and around like somnolent snakes, tiled in vibrant greens and cerulean blues that spelled pictures of their own, tales from the Constellations’ varied history. Apollo pointed out a few he thought she’d know, like the old traditional Virgo ballad of Celestina and her star lover Cygna, set in jade panels along a lush greenhouse filled with small pools, upon which pale lotuses bloomed. The lush greenery provided a dense, close sort of privacy, vines twisting over the walls of the dome, and in the distance, the great doors of the ballroom stood closed, inlaid with gold and white. Flowers bloomed year round, their fragrance soft and sweet, and woods claimed parts of the gardens, great pale stands of silver birches that rustled solemnly in a conjured wind, with bluebells twisting between their roots and nightshade clumping in indigo bushes.

A steady incline made the gardens in a spiralling upward slope until they wound the whole way around the height of the tower, like a thick translucent bubble of green around the thin white tower, capped with an observatory. Private suites opened directly into the gardens, and a few minor nobles moved around the various levels, treating it as a grand, communal staircase, wonderful and unique. Gazebos and sitting spaces randomly appeared in the cultivated wildness, tucked away in nooks and crannies that promised a wealth of childhood hiding places, and even more secret places where a couple could sneak off during one of the massive balls, which could last up to a month and decadent with every luxury imaginable.

Every Tsar and Tsarina of the Towers of the Moon had added to the gardens in their time, until it buckled with all sorts of the most magnificent visions to be found, such as: works of art with spells woven into the cloth to keep their beautiful colours as vivid as the day they were made; gossamer spirits that drifted like wisps through the plants, giggling and teasing and maintaining the gardens that housed them; fairies with brilliant jewelled wings that buzzed with glee, some of them daringly touching the lady’s hair, as if they wanted to steal a little for their nests; the singing birds and wandering animals – here, a rich horse with a dappled coat, there, a chimaera with liquid eyes, now, an ox with eight horns bristling from his head like porcupine quills; graceful statues carved so lifelike it seemed as if they could move if one only blinked, many of Nightlight; works of magic that negated physical laws – water held suspended in the air in a twisting, prismatic glitter from an icebound oak, magical mirrors that whispered your sweetest dreams surely as a star, a collection of electric blue tulips that flowered and died and regrew in the space of moments, moondials that adjusted themselves automatically to the cycle; and whole fields of poppies and moonflowers blooming side by side, splashes of red-white like a soldier’s bandage.

Apollo smiled privately, feeling rather pleased with himself. The gardens were a good place to take her.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, her eyes almost shining with delight, and Apollo found himself watching her, taken aback. Freed of shyness by the marvel of the gardens, she was radiant, light seeming to catch and shimmer in her long white-blonde hair, in her eyelashes, curled with the faintest gleam of oil, her lips, painted with the softest pink.

“All the gardens in the world could not hold a candle to your beauty, my lady,” he replied, and something shuttered in her face, all that pure bright joy disappearing behind tutored obedience.

“My Tsar is too kind,” she murmured, and Apollo frowned, aware that he had said something wrong, wishing he could correct it.

The conversation picked up again, but something still remained stilted. She didn’t respond well to his casual flirting at all, any attempt of doing so made her close off. Apollo found himself uncharacteristically cast adrift, put out of his comfort zone by her lack of reaction. He tried jokes, and she laughed in a soft, tinkling manner that didn’t even reach her sad, frightened eyes, and discussing the plants she had looked so impressed with didn’t seem to catch her interest at all.

Frustration curdled low in his gut. What was _wrong_ with her? She wouldn’t let her guard down for anything. Was it him? Was _he_ doing something wrong?

Apollo decided he had no choice. He shifted his hand so that his fingertips brushed her bare wrist, and sent a small pulse of magic into her body, entirely unnoticed. He frowned at what he read. She was trembling, and her heart was racing in fear. She was absolutely terrified, and he had had no idea of the depth of it. The hand hidden by her body was being clenched so tightly that she was drawing blood from wounds in her palms, and there was a stretching sort of pain on her skin – hundreds of tiny holes, made by a dressmaker’s pin, if he had any authority.

A surprising feeling made itself known; pity. He pitied her, and it gentled his manner. But Apollo was  lost. In an attempt to fill the silence, he cast about for a topic.

“I hear Virgo are famous for their dancers. You are a dancer?” he asked, and she blinked a little, seeming surprised at his change of attitude, but he could feel her heartbeat slow slightly.

Mentally, Apollo kicked himself. He’d been going about it all wrong – _of course_ flirting wouldn’t make her feel at ease, they were strangers, and she was no seductive courtier lass, but a young, relatively isolated girl from conservative Virgo.

“Yes, my Tsar,” she replied, and he smiled at her, making it as genuine as he could.

“Perhaps you could show me sometime,” he offered, doing his best to eliminate any element of flirtatiousness in it.

It was far harder than he’d anticipated. He’d not had to be nice to anyone without the intention of having sex with them immediately after for – well, more years than he could remember. Apollo didn’t quite know what to do, and found he disliked the novel feeling of being completely adrift.

She glanced determinedly down at the floor, and said, quietly, but with an undercurrent of something that was almost making fun, “I hear the Lunanoffs are famous for their magic. Perhaps you could show me sometime.”

Immediately, she flushed, insofar as she was able, and swallowed in nervousness at her own bravery. Why had she been so untoward?

For a moment, Apollo stared at her, startled to hear his effort turned back on him. Despite himself, he grinned, and something reckless prompted him to boast, “I can show you a little now.”

Interest brightened her eyes again, like a secret, shy thing, and, emboldened by her approval, Apollo bent to pluck a scarlet rose from the flowerbed beside them. He closed his eyes in concentration, and blew lightly on the rose. White spread like curls of frost over the petals, colour draining from it until it became silver, and shining faintly with its own light, and as the magic passed from his body into the rose, so another streak of colour appeared in his hair.

He turned to her and slid the rose into her pale hair behind her ear, staring into her eyes as he murmured, lips quirking, “The red is too dark for my lady’s fair hair.”

She blushed, prettily, and her hand came up to touch the petals. A tentative little smile transformed her lips, grey eyes almost soft as she mustered the courage to meet his gaze. It would be a lie to say that she was not beautiful then, with confidence beginning to blossom, and he evaluated her in a new light. With a few years to mature, and perhaps a child – _Apollo’s_ child – to swell her curves, she would be a woman fairer than any other.

 _Oh, this could certainly be worse,_ thought Apollo.

“It… it doesn’t bother you?” she asked quietly, a little breathlessly, her lips pulling down, “that I… that I am so pale and sickly?”

He chuckled, low and gentle, and she stared at him with wide, doe eyes as he offered her his hand. “Why, in the name of the Light, would it bother me?” he asked her kindly.

Her hand trembled as she slipped it into his, and he held their interlocked fingers up between them, a small pulse of magic leaping from the touch. She started, and stared at their hands – identical in their colourlessness, the unseen poison-magic that thrummed beneath the skin.

Apollo just smiled. “Don’t you see?” he said, softly, slowly, as to not scare her away. “We _match.”_


End file.
